A social enterprise is essentially an organisation that trades in the market, but aims to do more than make a financial profit; instead, it devotes the profit it makes towards a social objective.
Definitions vary. The best established European research network in the field, EMES http://www.emes.net, works with a Weberian 'ideal type' which sets out nine fuzzy criteria:
Economic criteria:[]
1. continuous activity of the production and/or sale of goods and services (rather than predominantly advisory or grant-giving functions).
2. a high level of autonomy: social enterprises are created voluntarily by groups of citizens and are managed by them, and not directly or indirectly by public authorities or private companies, even if they may benefit from grants and donations. Their shareholders have the right to participate (‘voice’) and to leave the organisation (‘exit’).
3. a significant economic risk: the financial viability of social enterprises depends on the efforts of their members, who have the responsibility of ensuring adequate financial resources, unlike most public institutions.
4. social enterprises’ activities require a minimum number of paid workers, although, like traditional non-profit organisations, social enterprises may combine financial and non-financial resources, voluntary and paid work.
Social criteria:[]
5. an explicit aim of community benefit: one of the principal aims of social enterprises is to serve the community or a specific group of people. To the same end, they also promote a sense of social responsibility at local level.
6. citizen initiative: social enterprises are the result of collective dynamics involving people belonging to a community or to a group that shares a certain need or aim. They must maintain this dimension in one form or another.
7. decision making not based on capital ownership: this generally means the principle of ‘one member, one vote’, or at least a voting power not based on capital shares. Although capital owners in social enterprises play an important role, decision-making rights are shared with other shareholders.
8. participatory character, involving those affected by the activity: the users of social enterprises’ services are represented and participate in their structures. In many cases one of the objectives is to strengthen democracy at local level through economic activity.
9. limited distribution of profit: social enterprises include organisations that totally prohibit profit distribution as well as organisations such as co-operatives, which may distribute their profit only to a limited degree, thus avoiding profit maximising behaviour.
Ongoing research work characterises social enterprises as often having multiple objectives, multiple stakeholders and multiple sources of funding. However their objectives tend to fall into three categories:
Activities[]
- integration of disadvantaged people through work (work integration social enterprises or WISEs)
- provision of social, community and environmental services
- ethical trading such as fair trade
Various definitions[]
Despite, and sometimes in contradiction to, such academic work, the term social enterprise is being picked up and used in different ways in various European countries:
- In Finland a law was passed in 2004 that defines a social enterprise as being any sort of enterprise that is entered on the relevant register and at least 30% of whose employees are disabled or long-term unemployed. As of March 2007, 91 such enterprises had been registered, the largest with 50 employees. (In the UK the more specific term 'social firm' is used to distinguish such integration enterprises);
- Italy passed a law in 2005 on imprese sociali, which the government gave form and definition by decree in 2008.
- In the UK, the government has adopted a very loose definition, focusing on non-proft distribution rather than ownership or participation: social enterprises are “businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners” [1].
- However organisations of social enterprises themselves often use more elaborated definitions. For instance Social Enterprise London uses three criteria:
- Enterprise orientation: They are directly involved in producing goods or providing services to a market. They seek to be viable trading organisations, with an operating surplus.
- Social Aims: They have explicit social aims such as job creation, training or the provision of local services. They have ethical values including a commitment to local capacity building, and they are accountable to their members and the wider community for their social environmental and economic impact.
- Social ownership: They are autonomous organisations with governance and ownership structures based on participation by stakeholder groups (users or clients, local community groups etc.) or by trustees. Profits are distributed as profit sharing to stakeholders or used for the benefit of the community.